Why You Are a Target
Kingdom Journey: Day 4
Thursday, January 5, 2023
Today’s Reading: Matthew 4
It seems Jesus can’t even towel off and get dressed after being water baptized in the Jordan River before Satan shows up and challenges what Jesus has heard.
We ended yesterday’s reading in Matthew 3 with hearing God speak.
Today’s reading in Matthew 4 opens with hearing Satan speak.
Remember that in Matthew 3 at Jesus’ water baptism, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” And before Jesus could properly digest and process those words, Satan spoke. Satan’s message: Did God really say that?
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God . . . .” (Matthew 4:1-3, emphasis added)
God the Father had just told him, “You are My Son” (Matthew 3:17). Now Satan was questioning what God had said to Jesus. In essence, he was asking, “Did God really say that . . . ?”
This is not new. Satan was just shooting the same bullet he always does.
Remember back to the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 3, the devil did the same thing in the Garden of Eden with Eve. His first recorded words pose a question—but not just any question. He asked a question to humans about God. “Has God said . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1). In other words, “Did God really say that?”
This is what you need to know: Whatever God backs, Satan attacks.
Sometimes Satan’s attacks are the confirmations that you did hear from God and God did speak to you. As clear as God’s voice was for Jesus, Satan’s voice came in fast and clear. He did the same to Adam and Eve. He’ll do the same to you and me.
No one is off limits—not Jesus, not the first family (Adam and Eve), not a child in the womb, not a pastor’s family. No one who follows God and tries to be obedient to Him. C. S. Lewis writes, “The enemy will not see you vanish into God’s company without an effort to reclaim you.”
Why does Satan come after you? Not because you are bad, but because, as a child of God, you are valuable. If you are a thief, and that is what Satan is, you don’t break into abandon houses; you break into places you know has valuable stuff. Thomas Watson puts it this way: “Satan doth not tempt God’s children because they have sin in them, but because they have grace in them. Had they no grace he would not disturb them.”
A thief will not assault an empty house, but where he thinks there is treasure.
Several years ago Sotheby’s auction house in New York City had an auction. Here are some of the items that sold:
• Napoleon’s toothbrush: $48,000
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s fake pearls: $256,000
• President John F. Kennedy’s wood golf clubs: $750,000
In and of themselves, they had worth, but what made them so extravagantly valuable? Not what they were by themselves, but whom they belonged to. Just as you had worth before you became a Christian, the day you got saved, your value skyrocketed. You just went from being “abandoned property” to being owned by the Creator of the Universe.
Now since you are valuable, you are a target.
Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com
It seems Jesus can’t even towel off and get dressed after being water baptized in the Jordan River before Satan shows up and challenges what Jesus has heard.
We ended yesterday’s reading in Matthew 3 with hearing God speak.
Today’s reading in Matthew 4 opens with hearing Satan speak.
Remember that in Matthew 3 at Jesus’ water baptism, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” And before Jesus could properly digest and process those words, Satan spoke. Satan’s message: Did God really say that?
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God . . . .” (Matthew 4:1-3, emphasis added)
God the Father had just told him, “You are My Son” (Matthew 3:17). Now Satan was questioning what God had said to Jesus. In essence, he was asking, “Did God really say that . . . ?”
This is not new. Satan was just shooting the same bullet he always does.
Remember back to the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 3, the devil did the same thing in the Garden of Eden with Eve. His first recorded words pose a question—but not just any question. He asked a question to humans about God. “Has God said . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1). In other words, “Did God really say that?”
This is what you need to know: Whatever God backs, Satan attacks.
Sometimes Satan’s attacks are the confirmations that you did hear from God and God did speak to you. As clear as God’s voice was for Jesus, Satan’s voice came in fast and clear. He did the same to Adam and Eve. He’ll do the same to you and me.
No one is off limits—not Jesus, not the first family (Adam and Eve), not a child in the womb, not a pastor’s family. No one who follows God and tries to be obedient to Him. C. S. Lewis writes, “The enemy will not see you vanish into God’s company without an effort to reclaim you.”
Why does Satan come after you? Not because you are bad, but because, as a child of God, you are valuable. If you are a thief, and that is what Satan is, you don’t break into abandon houses; you break into places you know has valuable stuff. Thomas Watson puts it this way: “Satan doth not tempt God’s children because they have sin in them, but because they have grace in them. Had they no grace he would not disturb them.”
A thief will not assault an empty house, but where he thinks there is treasure.
Several years ago Sotheby’s auction house in New York City had an auction. Here are some of the items that sold:
• Napoleon’s toothbrush: $48,000
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s fake pearls: $256,000
• President John F. Kennedy’s wood golf clubs: $750,000
In and of themselves, they had worth, but what made them so extravagantly valuable? Not what they were by themselves, but whom they belonged to. Just as you had worth before you became a Christian, the day you got saved, your value skyrocketed. You just went from being “abandoned property” to being owned by the Creator of the Universe.
Now since you are valuable, you are a target.
Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com
Recent
Archive
2023
January
Getting Rid of Your LabelsAlways One Step AheadHearing the Most Important VoiceWhy You Are a TargetJesus’ Prescription for HappinessThe Paycheck is Really Good—So Show UpLogs and SpecksEight is MondayHow Big Is Your Faith?God’s People Are Different and That’s GoodHow Exclamations Turn into Question MarksTaking My 18,000 Real SeriouslyWhy Is It Hard for Me to Read the Bible?When Someone I Love DiesFighting to Get My AnswerSome Days Simon, Some Days Peter, and Some Days SatanA Private “Why”An Incredible Promise of His PresenceDo You Know Someone Who Needs to Be Saved?God’s Generosity Goes Beyond What’s FairTwo Hurdles Away from Moving a MountainChange Starts with Love
February
Hypocrite!The Day the Curtains Come DownThree Stories That Remind Me of ForeverHow Can You Be That Far Off?The Tearful Eye or the Broken NeckThe First Words of the Resurrected JesusDemon Prayers and Fever PrayersFour of a Kind Beats a Full HouseJesus Pulls a WebsterTwo Storms StoriesThe Man Who Lived in a CemeteryLimiting JesusPutting the Word of God in a WheelchairI Don’t Want to Be Known As 409Seized StatementsJesus Gets a TestWhat Stops Mountains from Ending Up in the Ocean?When the Renters Think They Are the OwnersThe Best Way to Study End TimesWhat Were You Thinking at #1?
March
Can You Imagine if Your Dad Carried Jesus’ Cross?The Big Rock Story Sounds like a Big Bang StoryYou Never Know What Could Happen if You just Show UpLosing JesusJohn the Baptist’s Water Baptism Instructional ClassSatan Quotes the BibleI Want My Own Fish StoryA Christian’s Retaliation ResponseWhat Do I Do With All These Tears?Living a High-Def Life“Jesus, You Promised and Now I Can’t—I Don’t Understand”Helping People I HateI Am Not Going to Have Another Unused GiftMy, My, My, MyHow to Face Tragic DeathExcuses! Excuses! Excuses!The Father Is More Prodigal Than the SonHell Is a Real PlaceGetting More Than You Asked ForIt Should Be Easy to Pick Out Who God Likes Best . . . or Maybe NotDesperate Times Call for Desperate MeasuresTaking a Page From Jesus’ Method in Hostile EnvironmentsNo Noise Offerings
April
Plotting Satan and Praying ChristJust BreatheA Fire Seven Miles Outside of JerusalemThe First 10:00 A.M. ServiceBad Stuff Is Always Trying to Make Its Way Back in My LifeDon’t Make It Harder Than It IsTwo Truths for FreedomYou Don’t Need Bubbles AnymoreYou Should Have Stopped at the FishNow You Know the Rest of the StoryTrying to Declaw the LionI Once Was Blind but Now I SeeSheep Need a ShepherdNot Till It StinksParadoxical ChristiansFour Shouldn’t Follow ThreeOne Comes After Thirty-EightWill You Accept the Challenge?The Warning Sign or the HospitalLift Up Your Eyes in Prayer
May
What Kind of Pilate/Pilot Are You?You Can’t Hide One Hundred PoundsA Sunday-Night Message From JesusDropping the Light BulbHow Your Problems Can Be the Fulfillment of Your DreamHow Do You Face the Worst Times?3 P.M. ChristiansThe “Can’t Help It” ConditionIt May Look Exactly the Same but Be Drastically DifferentThe Reason It’s a Requirement: Because It Will Be Needed for a WeaponWhere Do Aliens Come From?Be Careful of Playing With FireHow a Really Bad Man Becomes the Greatest ChristianHow an Italian Met a JewOne of Three